Absolute Inwardness was Hegel’s definition of the true content of Romanticism (‘infinite subjectivity’). This piece draws on elements of late romantic style, and fragments them until the work disintegrates into a constellation of ideas that look inwards. There are echoes of chorales, of late Brahms, and at the end the piece dissolves into a chord that covers the entire range of the piano. This work is something of a companion piece to The Couperin Sketchbooks, being its opposite in many respects.